Outside Scholarships

Outside scholarships are gifts that are awarded by external businesses and entities. Outside scholarships are similar to grants as they do not generally need to be repaid or earned through work. Award amounts, eligibility criteria and application procedures will vary by scholarship program.

How Outside Scholarships are Treated

You may be awarded Work-Study and loans as part of your financial aid package. These types of financial aid are considered "self-help" aid, as they need to be earned or repaid, respectively. Any outside scholarships you earn will be used to replace your Work-Study and loan funds. This will reduce (or even eliminate) the amount of money you will need to earn in school or repay afterwards. Awards will be replaced by scholarship funds in the following order:

First-year students

Work-Study

Caltech Loan

Student's expected contribution from summer earnings

Continuing students

Caltech Loan

Work-Study

Student's expected contribution from summer earnings

If you are receiving need-based financial aid from Caltech, outside scholarship funds cannot be used to reduce your family's expected contribution.Your total financial aid, including outside resources, cannot exceed your demonstrated financial need. Any scholarship funds that remain after replacing all of the awards listed above will be used to offset a portion of your Caltech Scholarship.

Because of these restrictions, adding an outside scholarship to your package cannot increase the quantity of funds available to you. Outside scholarships can only improve the quality of your package by replacing your self-help aid with gift aid.